Candace Armour MBA ’14, BSME ’14: Founder of Epic Fab Girl

Feb 12, 2018• by Kurt Greenbaum

Candace Armour is founder of Epic Fab Girl, a lifestyle blog for career-minded women and an alumna of The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. The consortium is a $30 million, independent nonprofit that funnels millions in merit-based fellowship support annually to MBA prospects attending its 19 member schools.

Candace Armour is founder of Candace Junée Consulting, where she provides one-on-one consulting to help brands turn ideas into profitable businesses. (Courtesy photo)

Armour’s father, a sheet metal worker in Chicago who founded his own construction restoration business, inspired her to be an entrepreneur. The consortium created a family environment that supported the young MBA prospect.

“I was about 22,” Armour says. “The median age for Consortium students was around 28. With the consortium, it was helpful preparing and developing more confidence speaking with different firms.”

A rarity among MBA students these days, Armour earned her MBA while finishing her bachelor’s degree in engineering at Washington University, combining both into five years.

“When I saw WashU, I literally fell in love,” Armour says. “I really wanted to pursue what I was passionate about: Business is in my nature, and I’m very entrepreneurial-minded and -spirited.”

That spirit led her to launch her first startup, Fancy Extensions, in her first year at Olin. After a three-year post-MBA career at Accenture as senior digital marketing analyst, Armour left to pursue what started as her side hustle: Epic Fab Girl, a lifestyle blog for career-minded women. Since leaving Accenture, she also launched Candace Junée Consulting, her Chicago-based brand consulting firm.

Through her consulting firm, Armour provides one-on-one consulting to help brands turn ideas into profitable businesses. And at Epic Fab Girl, she runs events, hosts webinars and organizes conferences to support women who are working on building their own businesses. She sees Epic Fab Girl as her way to support herself while nurturing other women — just as the consortium nurtured her.

“It was pretty valuable to me,” she says. “It reminded me of family because it reminded me that you’re not alone.”

Leading with diversity

One proud chapter of Washington University’s history is the founding of The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Since 1966, the consortium has been driving diversity in business education and corporate leadership around the country.